Coming Dead Last
by Rune-Spirit
Summary: When the house moves Travis to set his sights on cozying up with Violet, Tate doesn't take too kindly to it and has to rescue her from his overzealous advances.


R_S: This is meant to be a bit lighter than the usual AHS stuff, kind of a take on their dark and twisted humor. It also vaguely characterizes Tate and Violet through the eyes of someone who doesn't really know them as intimately as we, the audience, or the ghosts who keep tabs on them do.

Everyone does character pieces about the two of them competing and having sex or loving/hating each other, but I'd really like to read a story that shows Tate for the possessive guy he seems like he'd be. I've had a plot bunny in my head where Violet's home alone and some teacher 'checking up on her' or cable guy or whatever comes by and tries to take advantage of her and the way she can fight back somewhat but Tate saves her. I'm almost disappointed that the show didn't put her in some sexually ambiguous situation like that- those kids with no friends are primary targets for predators, because they lack a support system so it's easy to get away with taking advantage of them. I didn't trust myself to write a good murder scene, though, so I went with Travis getting house-ified.

Anyway, I wrote this sleep deprived with mono in awkward bits that I strung together, so be kind haha.

* * *

><p><strong>Coming Dead Last<strong>

Being dead, Travis decided, sucked some serious balls. He was still learning the general ropes of this new existence- the dos and don'ts, appearing and disappearing, and the other residents of murder house. He knew that the unhappy Montgomery couple was harmless (if not a bit creepy), that the twins were annoyingly bratty, and that that Maria chick was on her own planet. And he knew to stay away from the angry blond kid, Tate, who seemed to spend most of his time elsewhere but could go from unassuming brooder to psychotic at the flip of a coin. But that was the least of his issues, though. He had already run out of shit to do! The other ghosts and he, they were trapped in the same god damn house every god damn day, and there was nothing, _nothing_ to do… except fuck, and he'd be damned if being dead didn't make him horny as all hell. Still, the only one to fall in with was that bitch Hayden, and that shit was getting old real fast. Seriously, he was done with crazies. At least Constance tried to love him, so he could put up with her psychotically abusive bullshit, but Hayden expected him to deal with all of that and none of the realness. He didn't need that; he was a hot piece of ass, and he knew it. When he was alive, girls would line up for a chance with him, even if he didn't have a job.

That was another thing; he wasn't ready to be god damn dead yet! There were about a dozen things he never got to do in life- get famous, act in a real movie, fuck a supermodel… hell, he'd never really been with a young girl in his life. When he was in high school, he messed around with college girls. During the short stint in which he attempted college, he fooled around with TAs and professors. After that, all connected women and cougars. Just once he wanted to have a young little thing look up at him nervously, excited but unsure to give him her virginity, or at the very least inexperienced and looking for someone to teach her. The schoolgirl fantasy was his go-to for the spank bank, actually. And hell, it wasn't like it made him a bad person- he just figured he'd find a nice 18-year-old- which was legal. But no, he died shacking up with a grandmother, never knowing the quivering innocence of a girl that hadn't fully developed. It was something that weighed on his mind one night, when he was discussing the rules of being dead with the crazy doctor who'd sawed up his corpse (that probably should have bothered him more than it did, but whatever).

"So you zombies just do whatever you want and never get into shit for it?" Travis's lithe form was stretched across a seat in the basement, lazy but tense and bored. He was looking for a loophole, a game, _anything_ to ease this tension. He hadn't had sex in almost a week, and things were starting to grate on him. Pretty soon Hayden would start to look like a viable option again, and he really didn't want to hear her condescension about how she just _knew_ he'd come crawling back.

"First off," Dr. Montgomery was examining a dead rat carcass as he spoke, taking the occasional hit, "we're not zombies- we're spirits. Second, you should stop categorizing us separately from yourself, because you'll have to get used to the fact that you're one of us eventually. Thirdly… yes, so to speak. We cover up any murder that happens, as you've been first hand witness to. Sometimes that's how the residents here amuse themselves…" he looked wistful for a moment, but banished whatever thoughts were swirling with a heavy inhale from his stash.

"Yeah, it can be a real _gas_." Hayden quipped, appearing suddenly and slinking into the room. Travis groaned inwardly, as she ran her hand across his shoulder. He did _not_ want to see her, and the way she clearly knew how uncomfortable he was infuriated him. Oh no, he was not sticking it in there again. He refused… crazy fuckin bitch.

"So that's it, we're just supposed to kill people to pass time here? Bummer."

She rolled her eyes at his lack of knowledge, "Honey, there are plenty of ways to interact with the living. We just can't leave the house."

"Anything? Like, even sex n' shit?"

"Well I fucked you, didn't I?"

"Huh…"

Travis ruminated on that for a few days (one bonus of being dead: yeah you had a lot of time on your hands, but it seemed to pass much faster). He had managed to bone a dead chick, and it wasn't nasty. Hell, he didn't even know she was dead until he was too. So maybe babes didn't need to know he was dead, he just needed to convince them to take a test drive. It kind of sucked that he couldn't have a relationship, but hell, he just got out of a super serious one- he deserved a break. And he was a guy, after all. They had needs. He thought about how Hayden had snagged him and decided to try the same thing. He spent every night lurking by the fence, trying to smile at any pretty ladies that walked by. But, there weren't many, and he noticed that people tended to avoid the house. Being dead must have made him smarter, or at least more observant, because he sure has hell never noticed any of that when he lived next door- lived being the operant word.

He started to widen his search after the second night- he headed out much earlier, and while he did see more people, his success rate didn't much improve. A few 'hi, how are ya's but no promising leads. It wasn't until one bored, frustrated afternoon when he wandered out onto the lawn that he started to really get thinking. A pretty little brunette was prancing her way past the gates, Gucci on one arm and cellphone in hand. He whistled and caught her attention.

"Hey pretty lady." He smirked as he looked at her, taking notice of a well-rounded body.

"Um… hi?" she flipped her hair.

"What's a pretty thing like you doin' out all by yourself?"

She giggled and batted her eyelashes, "I'm walking home from school. My car's in the shop… you live in murder house?"

"I live around here," he bypassed, "so you're really still in high school?" At the question, she straightened herself, trying to look more adult.

"Yeah, but I'm _so_ done with it, y'know? Everyone's, like, really immature… I'm Tiffany. You're in college, right?" He looked her over and smirked to himself in the knowledge that he could pass for college age. He could _so_ have scored some epic parts if he had lived long enough.

"Something like that…" She looked like she was about to respond, probably to ask his name, when her cellphone rang. She answered it immediately, but when she looked up he was gone.

That encounter had given him a lot to think about, and he did while he watched the high school girls go by every day. He was dead, above the law- that much was obvious based off all the murdering that went on in the house. So there was no reason he couldn't experiment a bit with a younger woman- no, a girl, one he couldn't have touched in life. Fuck, being dead had to have its perks. If he was going to do this, it wasn't going to be with someone who tried to be older than they were. And no brunettes- he definitely had a thing for blonds. So, he needed a virginal (or, at the very least, a mostly innocent) skinny blond teenager. That couldn't be too hard; they lived in California. At least, that was what he thought when he first undertook the endeavor. But he quickly came to realize that innocent, underdeveloped blond was not a popular look for the modern teen, and even fewer were the modern teens that were willing to enter a creepy house with a stranger. In short, he was getting nowhere and wasting his time getting hornier.

So it was really out of sheer luck that he saw her. He had officially given up, and he turned around to kick the tree behind him (his way of letting out the humiliation before he went to find Hayden and fuck her brains out) when he saw her. She was perched on the brick half-wall by the driveway, leaning against an arch while reading a book and smoking a cigarette. Her clothes were some mismatch of indie-grunge reject, almost billowing around her lithe little form as the wind sifted through her blond hair. There wasn't much there in the way of body, the archetypal build of a budding young girl, but she had an awfully pretty face. It had wise features, like a girl wise and brave beyond her years, jaded but clinging to naivety. And watching her slip off the wall and back into the house, Travis couldn't help but realize she was perfect- exactly what he had been looking for.

He followed her into the house silently, watching her rifle around the kitchen noncommittally. Her butt, he noticed, was a decent and average size for a girl her age- more so than her breasts, which seemed to be below. Assuming she wasn't some posturing child, he could work with this. He leaned back against the counter, imagining the best way angle to work things out the fastest.

Violet, for her part, had been having a rough day. Her dad had been preaching his bullshit again, and Tate was surprisingly absent, which meant she had no one to rant to. And it sucked, because she really wanted to make-out and he wasn't even in the basement. Where the fuck could he even _go_, he was a ghost! He couldn't even leave the god damn property, but she couldn't find him. Typical. Her dad was traipsing around the house, so she had gone outside for some peace and quiet, but of course it was too cold, so now she was back inside… Seriously, was a little bit of cranky cuddling too much to ask for? Her last thoughts were about how that shit sucked a big one when she closed the door to the freezer only to see a stranger.

"The fuck-" She eyed him suspiciously, taking a slight step back from the refrigerator, "Who are you?" The man looked her up and down thoughtfully, before offering her a smile. It was wide but plotting, with narrow eyes and a fiendish charm, easily inviting with its warm dimples. He was good-looking- _really_ good looking, if she was being honest- and lounging against the counter with a devil-may-care attitude.

"Hey, no worries sweet little thing, I just live around here- thought I'd say hi." Violet turned her head slowly, gazing at him cautiously through the corner of her eye.

"Oh…" she said with a tone of understanding and recognition, "what are you doing wandering around the kitchen?"

He cocked his head, "Oh, just trying to be friendly, neighbor. What's your name, beautiful?" She glared back petulantly in response.

"Who's asking, asshole?" He laughed- he liked her spunk. It was youthful, sexy in an innocent way. It lacked the luster and condescension of Constance's insults, much more angst ridden and bitter like any other teen. He moved forward, tilting her chin up gently with a smirk. She looked uncomfortable.

"Travis."

"Well, _Travis_, for future reference: don't fucking touch me." She violently brushed his hand from her face and stormed past him back to her room. Tate was looking through her books, waiting for her, and she ranted to him about her dad.

* * *

><p>That blond brat was in the basement again, slouched ponderingly in a chair and glaring a hole in the opposite wall. Damn that kid creeped Travis the fuck out. He didn't know where Tate spent the majority of his time, but he didn't care, so long as it kept him away. He didn't know much about him, like what his story was or why he was dead, but he knew that he was bat shit insane and that sometimes he put on some fucked up rubber fetish suit to rape and murder people, and he wanted nothing to do with that shit. Whether it was the boy's own insanity or the result of the house (everyone kept saying it could make you go crazy), that boy was a monster, and he wanted nothing to do with that shit. Travis wasn't a violent person, never would be.<p>

He slipped silently from the basement as Hayden picked another fight with the boy, talking about flowers and nightingales like the crazy bitch she was. Evidently, the kid liked to garden and look at birdbaths or some shit. That made his sociopathic violent tendencies even weirder. Travis did _not_ want to be there when that kid showed how much stronger and more fucked up he was than Hayden. Instead, he would visit the pretty little blond thing upstairs; that could be fun. He had been visiting her often, whenever possible and always when that boy came around, creepy little shit.

He found her lounging across her bed, reading some old-timey book that he probably burned in high school. Violet was always reading shit that girls her age had no business being interested in. Whatever happened to Twilight? Shit, her weird-ass hobbies made talking to her way more difficult. It was starting to piss him off- he didn't like working for ass. But she was cute, with some indie rock shirt and purplish tights that stretch the length of her scrawny legs, from the bottom of her tiny jeans shorts to her mismatched socks. Her tits were bigger than he initially thought, closer to average size than the mosquito bites he first thought them to be. Each could be a comfortable handful. He smirked and leaned against the doorframe, noticing how her shirt had ridden up a little above her midriff, and she was playing with a strand of golden hair as she chewed her bottom lip. It was so high school. He loved it.

"Howdy." She glanced up, jarred from her concentration. Her mouth hung agape for a moment before she fixed him with a stiff glare. Sitting up, her hand adjusted her shirt to cover the skin he was openly eyeing.

"What are you doing in my room?" This was becoming all too common, Travis dropping in on her unannounced at random points of the day. It never ceased to throw her off, being much more used to Tate's more planned and actually _welcome_ visits. They were never there at the same time, though. And this was the first time Travis ever showed up in her room, to the best of her knowledge. For his part, he walked in like he owned the place, dropping sideways into the overstuffed brown leather chair that was fucking _Tate's_ seat, god damn it.

"Don't be so cranky, Vi," she didn't know how he learned her name, but she _hated_ the way her nickname sounded off his tongue, "I'm just trying to make friends."

"Yeah, well I didn't ask for you to come play Barbie and braid my hair, so piss off!" He only chuckled at her attitude, further angering her.

"Gotta love what a little spitfire you are, it's sexy as hell kiddo… you ever been with any guy before? Ever let a man kiss you in places that'd make your mother blush?" It was everything in her power to stay calm. Violet just shut her eyes, concentrated, and got him away from her as fast as she could.

"Go _away_!" When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

That night, she was curled up on her bed again, this time with Tate. It was an unusually intimate moment for them, her thin hips situated between his legs as she reclined against his chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, and she could smell his warm scent as much as he could smell her own feminine one. It was warm, and it should have been much more comforting, but even though it was one of her favorite positions, it wasn't. She was still stiff from earlier, staring thoughtfully at the doorway.

"What's wrong?" Tate's voice was muffled by her hair and the kisses he was peppering on her neck.

"There's this ghost I haven't seen before, Travis." She told him thoughtfully, "What's his story?"

He chuckled lightly, and she could feel his chest vibrate, "No idea, haven't seen him around too much. He's harmless though, just dumb." She glanced back at him.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's a real idiot… just full of shit like everybody else." He stopped, body tensing and fists tightening around her, "Wait, why? Is he bothering you?" Violet bit her lip, sensing his protective streak, but shook her head slowly.

"No… I mean, not really. Just keeps talking to me n' shit, guess he's lonely or something. I just send him away like you showed me." Her boyfriend paused for a moment to digest that, but it seemed to appease him, and he returned to his previous affectionate activity. She pushed her second stalker from her mind, so much preferring to focus on how nice it was to be cuddled against her first.

* * *

><p>27. That was the number of times that annoying little bitch had sent his ass packing in less than 5 minutes. That wasn't even including the times she humored him a bit before she lost her temper and banished him in that silly little way of hers. Every time she did it, he started to laugh a little, as if closing your eyes and screaming would <em>really<em> work, and then it did and he felt really fucking stupid. Damn, what was happening to kids these days? Once upon a time, you could just smile at a high school girl and she would do anything to tell her friends she'd macked it with an older man. It was a challenge now, an infuriating one. Sure, her teenage angst and bratty spunk was sexy in its own right, betraying both her naïve innocence and a little bit of bite that he was sure showed itself in bed, once she got the swing of things. But, at a certain point, he lost his patience. He was _not_ a guy used to being told no- girls were beside themselves to fuck him. And the worst part was she was _exactly_ what he was looking for, the exact fantasy he had always wanted to play out. Little miss spunk and spitfire falling for his charms, giving herself to him with uncharacteristic innocence and letting her secret insecurity shine through as she gave him the one thing she truly had to give. God, it got his blood flowing just thinking about it. But that was the problem- she played her part a little too well. She had the huffiness, the 'me-against-the-world' attitude, even the whip sharp snarky dialogue down to a T, but she never let him play up his own wise, older man musings to lead her to him. She always just exorcised him or some shit… How did she even know about his being all carved up and murdered, anyway?

God it fucking _sucked_. He remembered some of the things Hayden had said to him, about how sex can be a weapon and how primal physical needs and rage just consumed her. She swore it magnified when she died, and he was starting to understand where she was coming from. He had always been such a gentle person in life, never stepping up against Constance in her bitch fits or lifting a finger to anyone, save for the occasional bar fight. In fact, he had always even been a gentle lover- one couldn't be too rough with a woman of Constance's age. But god, right then he just wanted to pin something down and _fuck it_. It was the house- that's what all the ghosts said. And damn it, if that's what he could blame it on, he would. It didn't matter, nothing he did was coming back to him- he was dead. Who would anyone tell? Who would believe them? What would they even do? All he knew for certain was that he was finding Violet and getting what he wanted. _Now_.

As he searched for her, winding through the big house, his anticipation grew. He had been watching her, watching her a lot lately- more and more often it seemed. At first it was just the occasional drop in, never anything too creepy. But as she proved to be more and more difficult to crack, he had to adjust his methods. He started to watch her for a little first, observing her body language and what she was doing in an effort to gauge the best way to approach her. And that was meant to be it- he had promised himself he'd never just watch her, only go when he intended to speak with her. It seemed wrong and so much like stalking, especially since she was underage. But she was the only living woman he had seen in so long, and that made her different than all the others, addictive even. Initially, he only went to kill time when that psycho Tate was lurking around the basement, would just go see what she was up to and see if it was appropriate to hang around or not. But Tate was upset and restless, spending more time down there than he'd have liked (which wasn't saying much really, since he'd be happiest if the kid just permanently disappeared), so he started spending more time around her room. He watched her read, do her homework… sometimes change or shower or judge herself in the mirror. She never knew he was there, Hayden taught him how to do that. And she had a better body than he imagined under all those baggy clothes- he wanted to be the first one to be inside it.

He found her wandering the house, seemingly searching for someone, "Hey man, come on- I'm bored. I_ know_ you're here… come out, come out wherever you are..." He smirked to himself at the perfect opportunity, feeling like an almost separate identity from himself, and appeared directly behind her so his lips brushed her ear.

"I hope you weren't searching for me too long."

Her shriek was sickly gratifying, as she spun around to find him, "What the fu- leave me alone, asshole, I wasn't talking to you!" He moved with her, remaining as her shadow and placing big hands on her slender hips and nuzzling her ear.

"Now isn't it time we stop playing these childish games, Violet? Playing hard to get only gets me so hard…" he pulled her to him, moved against her lithe form.

"Hey, what are you doing? Let go of me, you creep!" She struggled fruitlessly, his hands like vices on her form. Fighting the innate desire to panic and thrash, she tried to concentrate like Tate had taught her.

"Go awa-"

"Not this time!" He spun her around and slammed her against the cold leather of the couch, pinning her and covering her mouth. She screamed against his hand as he leaned in, looking at her in a mania that was not wholly his, probably mostly not his. He smelled her hair and groaned- she smelled like shampoo. Dead chicks like _never_ smelled freshly cleaned. He was already moving against her, more excited for the long awaited release than he had realized.

"I've wanted this for a while- ah!" She sunk her teeth into the firm flesh of his hand, trying to hide the fear in her eyes.

"Let me go you creep! I'll scream!" She snarled and spat in his face, but he hardly noticed.

He laughed in her face, "Like hell you will. Go ahead, baby, nobody's home." She glared back fiercely.

"You won't get away with this, you cunt! I'll-"

"Really?" he interrupted, grabbing her hair and yanking it back, "Who's gonna stop me? No one's going to believe a fucking dead guy raped you, princess, so just give it up. It'll be so much nicer if you just go along with it. I can make you feel good, better than if you lost it to any boy your age…"

His muscular form straddled her, hands running under her shirt and across her chest. She cried out, beating her fists against his arms, but it did no good- she was so tiny, she had no real strength. For his part, assaulting her lips and sucking on her neck, he was eager and ready. He knew she could feel it, too, as she was starting to tremble beneath him- to _really_ get scared. Maybe this was some fantasy he'd repressed in life, because though he never imagined it being like this, he found her protests furthered his excitement as he ground against her and licked the tears from her cheeks. In one smooth motion he pinned her two small wrists above her head in a meaty fist, and his lips descended upon hers with bruising force and feral excitement. His opposite hand slipped across her body to tweak her breast and unbutton her jeans, before dipping in for a perfunctory swipe against her panties.

She was getting hysterical now that he touched her, and it was getting him _so_ fucking hard.

"Mmmm, you're gonna be so tight. I'm gonna rail into you so bad…"

"Help!" she sobbed, "Tate! TATE!" Travis snorted to himself, reaching down to unbuckle his own pants. Why the hell was she screaming for the psychopath? Wanted to get tag-teamed, maybe?

It was so fast he didn't even know it was happening until it was over. His form flew across the room into the one of the hard wooden cabinets against the wall, knocking the wind out of him and searing his back. Hell, he didn't think anything could hurt a dead guy! But his vision spun with pain, a blurry blond figure, stocky and strong, looming over him. His visage was deadly, like a homicidal maniac driven to insane rage. Were he not already dead, Travis felt certain he'd have been gruesomely ripped apart right then and there, and even Violet looked scared of him when it flashed across his face.

Tate just knelt beside his love, brushing strands of blond hair behind her ear, "Are you ok? Did he hurt you?" She couldn't really talk, only raise a quivering hand to meet his as she shook her head and blubbered incoherence. His eyes were soft an innocent, looking for all the world like he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and make the pain all go away. He wanted to comfort her, to whisper soothing promises in her ears.

"It's ok; I'm here, and I won't let him touch-" Travis groaned involuntarily, interrupting the moment as pain was shooting up his back "Violet, go upstairs. Now!" She didn't need to be told twice. Tripping over her own feet, she practically scampered on all fours out of the music room and up the stairs. She lurked halfway to her room, too fearful to be far from Tate but unwilling to be close enough to hear or see whatever happened, to see or hear _him_ (later, after the fog of hysteria had cleared, a tiny part of her would wonder which man she was actually afraid at that point).

Downstairs, out of earshot from Violet, Tate rounded on her attacker, grabbing him by the neck and choking him against the wall. Beneath the wallpaper behind Travis's back, souls burned and suffered like Tate wanted to make him. The younger boy was seeing red, watching this smarmy new creep manhandle _his_ goddamn Violet. This newcomer asshole needed to learn his place, go back to letting his mom suck his cock or whatever, so long as he kept his filthy paws off of someone else's property. When Tate spoke to him, staring directly into his eyes with an expression so terrifying that later Travis wouldn't even be able to describe it to Hayden, his voice was low and deadly, gravely with rage. He leaned in, almost nose to nose, one fist with a grip too tight to breath and the other hand occasionally causing new pain.

"What do you think you're doing? You don't just climb on young girls, Travis, especially not when they're _mine_…" He was about ready to wet himself- he didn't know that he psycho had staked a claim on the girl! The fucking hypocrite was preaching about rape, when every god damn ghost in the house knew about his future offspring, but he was hardly in the position to say anything about it (later he would rant to Hayden, and she would roll her eyes and not even pretend like she gave a fuck).

"I don't like you, Travis," Tate continued, tightening his grip around the older man's throat, "you aren't welcome here. You weren't invited by the house, you died when you slipped in here to get your dick wet with some lowlife slut, and you aren't worthy of this place. Oh, if you weren't already fucking dead, I'd kill you so torturously slowly that just thinking about it gives me a hard-on. But you are dead, so you're stuck here, and we're just going to have to find a way to make that work.

"Things are going to get very bad for you, Travis. When I'm bored, you're going to cry like a little baby and bleed, oh, you're going to bleed so fucking much… like a stuck pig. You can't die again, but you can hurt and feel and _suffer_. And you will, believe me, you will. Just stay out of my way, and it won't get worse. You are never to touch anything that belongs to me _ever_ again. If you touch her, I will peel the skin from your fingers and hands. If you _look_ at her, I will shave your god damn eyeballs. If you even think about her, I will bash your _fucking_ head open."

His voice softened somewhat, though it still twanged with his instability, "I protect her, because I love her. I protect the things I love, and I would never let anything hurt her. Don't hurt her, Travis. Then I have to hurt you worse."

The man was released and slipped down the wall, gasping for air as he hit the ground. Things made sense now, he knew where the psycho spent all his time. Travis wondered how much time he spent with her, how much of it was mutual companionship and how much of it she was oblivious to. That was why he rarely saw him, why they rarely inhabited the basement at the same time. He probably spent more time avoiding the Tate than he did looking for Violet; hence all the time in the basement, and whenever the insane boy was down there, he skipped off to see her. Between the two of them, she probably didn't even get 10 minutes a day alone- no wonder she was so cranky. He really bit off more than he could chew that time. And as all this went through his head, Violet reappeared in the doorway with pants still open, drawn by relative silence and craving for her boyfriend's proximity. Tate was back beside her in moments.

He buttoned her jeans for her and held her close, flicking away her tears with a gentle stroke of his thumb and looking into her eyes tenderly. "Shhh, Vi, it's ok… I'm here. They're just spirits, they can't hurt you. He was just trying to scare you, that's all he can do."

It was amazing, the way lies just dripped off of his tongue like honey. And Violet, she curled into him like he was a fucking saint. His name escaped her lips in a tiny gasp like a prayer, her face buried within his neck and arms clutching him desperately. This was fucked- when did he become the villain and the mentally disturbed murderer the refuge? Tate looked back at him for only a moment, his expression a mixture of murderously territorial glares and triumphant shit-eating smirk. Well, she sure as hell wasn't virgin- that little shit's expression said it all.

Travis always felt dumb whenever he learned something that was obvious in hindsight, and that held especially true now. He should have known that's who Hayden was talking about (and oh would she mock him for this one), what with the 'flower' and 'nightingale' and always talking about the boy's pining… It also explained Violet's lack of Twilight-esque reading material. The kid was the quintessential anti-hero, the kind of character Travis always dreamed he'd play on film come to life. He wondered fleetingly if she even knew how massively fucked up Tate was and then decided that she probably wouldn't care. As she sniffled on about her mother and rapists in rubber suits (something that almost made him laugh bitterly with irony), the girl clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the world, all helpless and small… looking back, he remembered that as the reason why he had never been involved with a high school girl: they were too desperate for validation and needy. But this kid ate that shit up, acting like her knight in shining armor and relishing the way she needed him. He owned this identity he had concocted for himself like a true actor… or a true sociopath. Travis felt guilty, not because of what he did and tried to do- he was surprisingly numb to that. He just felt bad that this girl was already so deep in bullshit that she was probably choking on it, and he had just added to the issue.

In the end, watching the sociopathic teen switch from homicidal rage to puppy love in a matter of seconds was Travis's breaking point. This whole house, and everyone in it, was seriously _fucked_. That Tate kid would literally kill for that girl- hell, he might even kill _her_ he was so obsessed. Violet probably had no idea, she just wanted to be loved. That was mad drama that he did _not_ need to be involved with, and the house was trying to suck him in. Fuck that noise, he was going to go find Hayden for a good long ride. He needed it after all this bull.

* * *

><p><span>R_S:<span> hehehe Travis is such a dumbass. He's there for like a week and the house takes over him.

Anyway, I don't love it, but at least the plot bunny's been set free. And at least it's something different than what's already on here.


End file.
